LEGO Classic Castle in decline?

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Lil_Curt
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Re: LEGO Classic Castle in decline?

Post by Lil_Curt »

My statements above still apply :)

However I would amend it to also state that real life plays a big role as well. I havent done much of anything but buy new parts and sets. No building though, no inspiration or lack of time, or a combination of both. For instance the last 2 weeks, I have been working 12-13 hours a day in a kitchen without stoping. I get home i eat, mabye read some potter and go to sleep. Then get up and go in to work. I do have this friday off and may goto the lego store to get some stuff, but building not a chance. I am going to spend my day with my wife.

And in the months prior I was working 55 hours a week. So that ate a lot time and ambition. Anyway, i hope to start building again once work evens back out and i get some time again.

The other LUL as it were is still the lack of a good castle line. Yes Nexo Knights is out but I personaly am not a fan. And dont think it is going to be up to the classic castle line standards. But thats why we MOC :) anyways I hope to be abit more active this year.

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Leo of Rothenburg
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Re: LEGO Classic Castle in decline?

Post by Leo of Rothenburg »

Unfortunately, LEGO castle is in decline. Of course we all wish this was not the case but how how do we keep this from slipping any further? The simple answer is to tell LEGO to make more castle sets and that obviously will not work. One easy way we can prevent the theme slipping into obscurity is to keep posting on this forum. I know that sounds like an advertisement, but I have a specific reason for this.

When the BIONICLE line droped in 2010, many fans flocked to BZP (a BIONICLE forum) to discuss the toy line as a whole, the website was down for whatever reason, for quite a long time. This made the BIONICLE community loose about half of those who were interested. Obviously, BIONICLE has returned and because of this many more are getting back into the message boards, but many individuals who could have gone to the forum during the theme's dark age would have kept an interest in the line, but are no longer interested. This is why we must continue to post MOCs, reviews, stories, etc. even though there are no new sets. One reason LEGO has brought back BIONICLE is because the community had continued to shown great interest when the sets even though theywere no longer in production. The castle community must continue to show interest, so please continue posting.

One thing that also saved BIONICLE is a YouTube channel called TheThreeVirtues or TTV for short. (Sorry again for making this sound like an advertisement) Since the most popular BIONICLE forum was down for an unbelievable amount of time, people who were still interested in the toy line, would see videos on YouTube and obviously kept a liking for BIONICLE and attracted new viewers as well. Later down the timeline, BZP was back in action. The BIONICLE community was a bit upset by BZP unable to hold their own during the dark ages when the forum was needed most, so the TTV cast set up their own forum and eventually the TTV forum had more active members than BZP. A few of the reasons that they were so popular are that they have good quality reviews along with events that include the community while also having MOC spotlights on creations posted in the forum.

I do think that a YouTube channel is the way to go and gain popularity. I highly suggest that we get set on these tracks. If this channel starts up, obviously we need people to run it. So I propose that the classic castle website assign three to five people that are mods, administrators, or another member that has been here awhile to run the channel. Keep in mind that running one of those things takes a lot of time especially since you have to come up with a video every one to two days.

What do you guys think? Are there other ideas for the YouTube channel you have? I feel like a broken record, but I will say this one more time: I highly recommend a YouTube channel. I think it will be the salvation of the castle community as a whole. (As long as it has decent content of course)
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Re: LEGO Classic Castle in decline?

Post by Grover »

While I think a YouTube channel is a good idea, I think that any media or attention we can draw to Lego Castle is good. A YouTube channel, as you say, would have to have a dedicated person to it, working all the time. If you're volunteering, I'm all for it. I do not have the time to undertake such an endeavor.

Personally, I am not a big fan of channels and reviews as I don't have time for it. Not saying it's not a great idea, but for me, I tend to have a few minutes here or there and will search for the occasional video of Lego whatever on YouTube and will watch a tour of a Lego city or something. A lot of people seem to have tours of their Lego cities, such as this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ydnUUjNP84

The creations range from good to bad, with a lot of sets, but some MOCs thrown in. The speakers are usually kind of wordy, but there's a lot of interest. On the Castle side of things, the only tour video I could come up with easily is this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxUr9uCH13c

I'm glad he posted it, but compared to some of the City tours? Not that exciting.

One of the differences that I noted between the City pics and the Castle pics is that much of the City buildings are made for playability. A lot of our MOCs seem to be very pretty but have little playability, without insides that are accessible and what not. Maybe that's an unfair generalization, but there seems to be fewer Castle sets and MOCs with interiors easy to access and play with. I'm sure that there are several aspects to this:
1. Lego Castle sets have not been out for a while now
2. Castle and medieval themed materials are more rural and have more landscaping to deal with
3. Castle themed sets don't lend themselves to square road plates like City sets

I would be interested in seeing any kind of attention we can draw, but I have a feeling that it's going to take some sort of mini-revolution to garner enough interest to get people and thus Lego back into a Castle theme. Consider the lack of medieval themed material on the Lego Ideas page. There's a few good ones in there, but nowhere near what the City or Star Wars themes have.

I am not sure how to go about generating excitement again, but I agree, keeping these forums going is a big step in the right direction.
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Re: LEGO Classic Castle in decline?

Post by richardanthonyc »

I have noticed this trend and will give my two cents if that is ok. It may annoy some but I will be honest in my assessment

Perhaps the boards really missed a trick by not embracing the RPG side that had began to grow on here. A lot of very active posters have become active on a different forum they feel is more suitable. CC did not evolve sufficiently to retain these posters who were very prolific.

An off topic section - YES I KNOW. This is CC but you go onto any other successful forum online and there is an off topic section that is used by users to bond and get to know each others hobbies and interests outside of lego and brings a closer affinity between people and makes them want to visit here more.

The forum layout and website itself. I personally love the homepage as it is the same as when I first discovered here but I can see other people going to the homepage and thinking this is a very very basic site. Perhaps a revamped homepage would work better

Just my thoughts
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Re: LEGO Classic Castle in decline?

Post by AK_Brickster »

Maybe an awkward time to hop into the conversation after Richard's comment, since I am one of the "defectors" :lol: , but I did want to chime in that at BrickCon this year, the Castle section was probably the largest I've ever seen it, and that's even after the fact that Alice Finch and David Frank, two of Seattle's most prolific castle builders, "barely" participated, at least by their standards (they each had a MOC, but nothing huge).

I think Castle is still doing OK, but the forums are drying up for one reason or another. Hopefully the fall/winter months will bring people back, as they find themselves less occupied with summer activities.

Remember that the best way to keep the forums alive is by generating new content. Post your MOCs, comment on other threads, and generally be active, so that others will be drawn to the site and do the same. This gives everyone something new to look at when they log in. :)

Also, the CCC is a peak time of activity for this forum, so I'd suggest that the "regulars" around here make a big push to welcome newcomers and maybe even have some sort of recruitment drive, though how that would work, I'm not sure.

Also, don't be afraid to say hi to us over at Merlin's Beard. We are all part of the overarching wonderful online community that is a big part of what makes this hobby so special! :wave:
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richardanthonyc
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Re: LEGO Classic Castle in decline?

Post by richardanthonyc »

Ha I was thinking of you when I wrote that AK! You are right about it being a great online community, I just wish we were all on the same board still! lol

It seems like the board goes days without people posting sometimes so there's not much to come back to look at
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Re: LEGO Classic Castle in decline?

Post by Redav »

People's lives have their seasons too which affect activities like this, especially considering that no one is getting younger. I last posted Dec 2014 and I haven't visited much and I haven't been as active with the HeroQuest stuff I was into for a bit. We started our family early 2013 and have the third coming early next year and between the kids, work and fixing up a house we moved into a year ago, there hasn't been much spare time. My Lego's been packed and unused since preparing to move. I'd even started building a round tower when our first arrived and while it's almost finished, I haven't touched it for probably two years. I'm hoping that once we have the exterior of our place under control, I might have some time for other pursuits. By that stage our eldest will probably be helping me :roflol:

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Re: LEGO Classic Castle in decline?

Post by LEGO_KNIGHT »

LEGO_KNIGHT wrote:I'm back after long hiatus! :wave: ...(not that anyone know or misses me anyway) :lol:

It does seem less activity is happening around Classic-Castle forum except for the Castle MOC section. I remembered and am still fond of the good old days. Seems like many have move on to new interest in life, perhaps. There was SavaTheAggie (author of Ikros), Glencaer (CC City), Lord_Of_The_LEGO, architect and many others. I have been busy at Facebook and Flickr myself. But somehow I still remember Classic-Castle as being special.

Classic-Castle was the Go-To place to find out about LEGO Castle theme. I always look forward to new articles and information available on Classic-Castle. Even though I didn't post that much, I did participate in Henry's travel and some role-playing story. It was fun!

I noticed that the site has not been updated for quite some time now and some links don't work anymore. I agree with some of the posts above by Elephant Knight and Maedhros. But its nice to see Bruce N H and the new Admins & Mods still holding the fort. I hope Classic-Castle will get a revival again as the Go-To place to find Castle information. I'll be lurking around. :D
Im back...again from my post in 2015....its now 2020....I dont why I keep coming back to CC.... :roflol:
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Re: LEGO Classic Castle in decline?

Post by Bluesecrets »

LEGO_KNIGHT wrote:
LEGO_KNIGHT wrote:I'm back after long hiatus! :wave: ...(not that anyone know or misses me anyway) :lol:

It does seem less activity is happening around Classic-Castle forum except for the Castle MOC section. I remembered and am still fond of the good old days. Seems like many have move on to new interest in life, perhaps. There was SavaTheAggie (author of Ikros), Glencaer (CC City), Lord_Of_The_LEGO, architect and many others. I have been busy at Facebook and Flickr myself. But somehow I still remember Classic-Castle as being special.

Classic-Castle was the Go-To place to find out about LEGO Castle theme. I always look forward to new articles and information available on Classic-Castle. Even though I didn't post that much, I did participate in Henry's travel and some role-playing story. It was fun!

I noticed that the site has not been updated for quite some time now and some links don't work anymore. I agree with some of the posts above by Elephant Knight and Maedhros. But its nice to see Bruce N H and the new Admins & Mods still holding the fort. I hope Classic-Castle will get a revival again as the Go-To place to find Castle information. I'll be lurking around. :D
Im back...again from my post in 2015....its now 2020....I dont why I keep coming back to CC.... :roflol:
Welcome back. We're still here. I've been trying to post a topic a month to give us things to discuss. Sometimes I put a little contest in, sometimes I don't. Depends on my thought process. All of those topics are in the MOC forum. Feel free to join in on any of them.
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Re: LEGO Classic Castle in decline?

Post by LEGO_KNIGHT »

Bluesecrets wrote: Welcome back. We're still here. I've been trying to post a topic a month to give us things to discuss. Sometimes I put a little contest in, sometimes I don't. Depends on my thought process. All of those topics are in the MOC forum. Feel free to join in on any of them.
Thank you, Bluesecrets! I will be checking the forum from time to time. :D
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